“I’m right now on Page 81 of the script. It’s big. I mean big in terms of long; it spans a life. We go from 1950 to 1980, and Seann William Scott is going to be my guy, the guy that plays the lead. It’s based on the song that Warren Zevon recorded that Mitch Albom wrote the lyrics to. (The song is on “My Ride’s Here,” Zevon’s 2002 album.) …

We’re shooting in Detroit, too. I reached Warren’s estate about the song, and they said, “You’ve got to talk to Mitch Albom because Mitch Albom controls that song.” I said, ” ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ Mitch Albom?” So I got in touch with Mitch first by e-mail, and then he came to New York while I was there shooting “Cop Out.”

So he came and we hung out for about two hours, went downstairs and ate at the Ritz-Carlton down in Battery Park. At the end of it, he goes: “I gotta tell you, man, I felt like it was important to be face to face with you if I was gonna hand over the song. It’s a big deal.” He was like: “I don’t know how else to explain it, and I know there’s business deals and stuff later on. But I just feel like I wanted to see your face and to hear you talk about it.”

…

“…A lot of (the film) is going to take place in the ’70s. Detroit looks like it stopped in the ’70s, so we literally don’t have to set-decorate or set-design. We just turn on the camera and there’s an old building. It’s a great place and hopefully we’ll do it justice.

It’s almost like, for me, the closest parallel to it is “Forrest Gump” and not in terms of we’re gonna have all these amazing special effects in it. It’s just you follow one very simple person in a life that just touches everything throughout history and the sport, so it’s kinda like that. It’s ambitious, we’re not gonna be as good as “Forrest Gump,” but it’s ambitious.

It’s funny, but it’s not the comedy that I do. Like right now, honestly it’s still PG-13, there’s no cursing in it.”

“Hit Somebody” is planned to shoot following the completion of “Red State”, which goes in front of cameras in August.